News

Microsoft's Server & Tools, Dynamics Groups Lose Top Execs

• By Gladys Rama
• January 09, 2012

Robert Wahbe, the corporate vice president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Marketing Group, is leaving the company at the end of February, Microsoft announced on Saturday.

When asked for the reason behind Wahbe's exit, a Microsoft spokesperson replied in an e-mail, "Robert has decided to embark on a new path after more than 15 years at Microsoft. We thank him for his tremendous accomplishments at the company."

According to the spokesperson, replacing Wahbe will be Takeshi Numoto, currently the corporate vice president of Microsoft's Office Product Management Group.

Wahbe joined Microsoft in 1996 after it acquired Colusa Software Inc., the company Wahbe co-founded. According to his executive bio, he has held several product development titles at Microsoft, including head of the company's Connected Systems Division, which encompasses .NET Framework technologies, Windows Application Server, BizTalk Server and more.

As corporate vice president of Server and Tools Marketing, Wahbe was responsible for managing the pricing, branding and advertising for Microsoft's System Center, Visual Studio, Windows Server and SQL Server product lines. During the 2011 Worldwide Partner Conference, Wahbe gave the first public demo of the forthcoming Windows Server 8 product.

Numoto, Wahbe's successor, is a 15-year Microsoft veteran. Currently, he is in charge of the business management of Microsoft's Office productivity suite. He has also worked on the Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile (now Windows Phone) product teams.

Wilson Exits Dynamics CRM
In another Microsoft executive shuffle, Brad Wilson, who for the past six years has served as the general manager of the Dynamics CRM Product Management Group, announced in a blog post last Friday that he is stepping down from his position.

"What a journey it's been over the past six years!" Wilson wrote. "[F]rom the ground-breaking CRM 3.0 release, to full multi-tenancy with CRM 4.0, and the amazing user experience of CRM 2011...with the launch of CRM Online in 2008, a global roll-out in 2011, and six more Online service updates along the way...and with great customers and great partners around the world fueling double-digit growth of the Dynamics CRM business for 29 consecutive quarters." 

Wilson did not elaborate on his reason for stepping down except to say, "I'm taking some time to decide what to do next, but you can be sure that it will be about growth and passion."

During Wilson's tenure, Dynamics CRM Online, launched early in 2011, became the first hosted Microsoft product to mirror its on-premises counterpart. At the 2011 WPC, Wilson talked up Dynamics CRM's partner appeal and the enhancements that Microsoft later rolled out in the fall.

His replacement will be Dennis Michalis, who arrived at Microsoft in December 2011 from Deloitte Consulting, where he served as the business development lead, according to his Microsoft bio (.DOCX). Before that, he acted as the corporate senior vice president at Infor Global Solutions, where he oversaw the company's ERP cloud efforts.